It occurred to the barbarian, just briefly (for other things were suddenly flooding his thoughts!) how much an advantage the wealthy women of Faerыn held over the peasant women in terms of beauty. When first he and Delly had arrived, Deudermont had thrown a party for many of Waterdeep's society folk. Delly had felt so out of place, and so had Wulfgar, but for the woman, it was much worse, as her meager resources for beauty had been called to attention at every turn.
Not so now, Wulfgar understood. If Deudermont held another of his many parties on this stay in port, then Delly Curtie would shine more beautifully than any woman there!
Wulfgar could hardly find his breath. He had always thought Delly comely, even pretty, and her beauty had only increased for him in their time on the road from Luskan, as he had come to appreciate the depth of the woman even more. Now, combining that honest respect and love with this physical image proved too much for the barbarian who had spent the last three months at sea.
He fell over her with a great, crushing hug, interrupting her words with kiss after kiss, lifting her with ease right from the ground and burying his face in that mane of brown hair, biting gently at her delicate—and now it seemed delicate and not just skinny—neck. How tiny Delly seemed in his arms, for Wulfgar stood a foot and a half taller than her and was nearly thrice her body weight.
With hardly an effort, Wulfgar scooped her more comfortably into his arms, spinning her to the side and sliding one arm under her knees.
He laughed, then, when he noted that she was barefoot, and even her feet looked prettier to him.
“Are ye making fun o' me?” Delly asked, and Wulfgar noted that her peasant accent seemed less than he remembered, with the woman articulating the “g” on the end of the word “making.”
“Making fun of you?” Wulfgar asked, and he laughed again, all the louder. “I am making love to you,” he corrected, and he kissed her again, then launched into a spinning dance, swinging her all about as he headed for the door of their private room.
They almost got past the threshold before Colson started crying.
The two did find some time alone together later that night, and made love again before the dawn. As the first slanted rays of morning shone through the eastern window of their room, Wulfgar lay on his side beside his lover, his hand gently tracing about her neck, face, and shoulders.
“Sure that it's good to have ye home,” Delly said quietly, and she brought her small hand up to rub Wulfgar's muscular forearm. “Been a lonely time with ye out.”
“Perhaps my days out with Deudermont are at their end,” Wulfgar replied.
Delly looked at him curiously. “Did ye find yer hammer, then?” she asked. “And if ye did, then why'd ye wait for telling me?”
Wulfgar was shaking his head before she ever finished. “No word of it or of Sheila Kree,” he answered. “For all I know, the pirate went to the bottom of the sea and took Aegis-fang with her.”
“But ye're not knowing that.”
Wulfgar fell to his back and rubbed both his hands over his face.
“Then how can ye be saying ye're done with Deudermont?” Delly asked.
“How can I not?” Wulfgar asked. “With you here, and Colson? This is my life now, and a fine one it is! Am I to risk it all in pursuit of a weapon I no longer need? No, if Deudermont and his crew hear of Sheila Kree, they'll hunt her down without my help, and I hold great faith that they will return the war-hammer to me.”
Now it was Delly's turn to come upon her elbows, the smooth sheets falling from her naked torso. She gave a frustrated shake to toss her tangled brown hair out of her face, then fixed Wulfgar with a glare of severe disapproval.
“What kind of a fool's words are spilling from yer mouth?” she asked.
“You would prefer that I leave?” Wulfgar asked, a bit of suspicion showing on his square-jawed face.
For so many years that face had held a boyish charm, an innocence that reflected in Wulfgar's sky blue eyes. No more, though. He had shaved all the stubble from his face before retiring with Delly, but somehow Wulfgar's face now seemed almost out of place without the blond beard. The lines and creases, physical manifestation of honest emotional turmoil, were not the markings of a young man, though Wulfgar was only in his twenties.
“And more the fool do ye sound now!” Delly scolded. “Ye know I'm not wanting ye to go—ye know it! And ye know that no others are sharing me bed.
“But ye must be going,” Delly continued solemnly, and she fell back on the bed. “What's to haunt ye, then, if Deudermont and his crew go out without ye and find the pirate and some o' them die trying to get yer hammer back? How're ye to feel when they bring ye the hammer and the news, and all the while, ye been sitting here safe while they did yer work for ye?”
Wulfgar looked at Delly hard, studying her face and recognizing that she was indeed pained to be speaking to him so.
“Stupid Josi Puddles for stealing the damn hammer and selling it out to the pirate,” the woman finished.
“Some could die,” Wulfgar agreed. “Sheila Kree is known to be a fierce one, and by all accounts she has surrounded herself with a formidable crew. By your own reasoning, then, none of us, not Deudermont and not Wulfgar, should go out in search of her and Aegis-fang.”
“Not me own reasoning at all,” Delly argued. “Deudermont and his crew're choosing the road of pirate hunting—that's not yer doing. It's their calling, and they'd be going after Sheila Kree even if she'd ne'er taken yer hammer.”
“Then we are back where we started,” Wulfgar reasoned with a chuckle. “Let Deudermont and his fine crew go out and find the hammer if they—”
“Not so!” Delly interrupted angrily. “Their calling is to go and hunt the pirates, to be sure, and yer own is to be with them until they're finding yer hammer. Yers is to find yer hammer and yerself, to get back where ye once were.”
Wulfgar settled back on the bed and ran his huge, callused hands over his face again. “Perhaps I do not wish to be back there.”
“Perhaps ye don't,” said Delly. “But that's not a choice for ye to make until ye do get back there. When ye've found out again who ye were, me love, only then will ye be able to tell yerself honestly where ye're wanting to go. Until ye get it to where all is for the taking, then ye'll always be wondering and wanting.”
She went quiet then, and Wulfgar had no response. He sighed many times and started to repudiate her many times, but every avenue he tried to explore proved inevitably to be a dead end.
“When did Delly Curtie become so wise in the course of life?” a defeated Wulfgar asked a short while later.
Delly snickered and rolled to face him. “Might that I always been,” she answered playfully. “Or might not be at all. I'm just telling ye what I'm thinking, and what I'm thinking is that ye got to get back to a certain place afore ye can climb higher. Ye need to be getting yerself back to where ye once were, and ye'll find the road ye most want to walk, and not just the road ye're thinking ye have to walk.”
“I was back to that place,” Wulfgar replied in all seriousness, and a cloud passed over his face. “I was with them in Icewind Dale again, as it had been before, and I left, of my own choice.”
“Because of a better road calling?” Delly asked. “Or because ye weren't yet ready to be back? There's a bit o' difference there.”
Wulfgar was out of answers, and he knew it. He wasn't sure that he agreed with Delly, but when the call from Deudermont and Sea Sprite came the next day, he answered it.